


Training Sword+

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Mostly Fluff, Pre-Time Skip, fighting but there's not like stakes, other characters are mentioned but don't appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 15:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20978357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: Annette wants a sparring partner. Felix wants the training ground to himself. Byleth wants five minutes of peace and quiet for once in her life.A meandering one-shot about mages with imposter syndrome and the swordmasters who love them.





	Training Sword+

_Thwack_.

Felix Hugo Fraldarius readied another attack. The sword arced through the air and landed squarely on the chest of the practice dummy. The dummy swung wildly, knocked back by the force before toppling forward once more. Felix easily sidestepped the approaching mass before swinging his sword, sending it bobbing in another direction. And another, and another.

Practice dummies were tragically predictable.

Felix took a step back and tossed his practice sword to the ground. He watched the practice dummy’s pendulum become shorter and slower as it settled back to its resting position.

“A sad day for you, my friend,” he remarked to the dummy. “Although I suppose you’re used to it by now.” The practice dummy slowly waved back and forth, a signal he took to mean agreement.

Felix was not generally accustomed to making conversation with the silent targets that lined the edges of the training grounds. He was not generally accustomed to making conversation with much of anybody. But the grounds were eerily empty that afternoon – the Black Eagles House had ventured off to fight a group of bandits, the tournaments were reserved for the weekends, his so-called childhood friends had stood him up for his repeated invitations to spar. Felix stood alone among the stone pillars and straw soldiers.

Catching his breath and concluding that the dummy was not going to spring to life and converse with him any time soon, Felix picked up his sword and assumed a defensive stance in front of his long-suffering, silent companion. “Let’s try it again,” he muttered to the dummy. “Promise me you’ll go easy on me this time.”

He was halfway through the opening lunge when he heard someone clearing their throat behind him.

“Um, Felix?”

Years of swordsmanship training mean that Felix was able to whip around with more grace than he felt in the moment. Bringing his sword down at his side and settling his feet under him, he hurriedly scanned the practice grounds, readying an excuse for why he was talking to himself, or worse, why he was talking to nobody at all.

Adjusting his scan about a foot downward, he finally found the source of the voice.

The tiny mage stood directly in front of him, clutching a wooden practice sword that was practically half her height. Annette Dominic. Felix couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her at the practice grounds. Come to think of it, she seemed to be everywhere _but_ the practice grounds on most days – cheerfully watering the plants in the greenhouse, taking over someone’s stable duty just to be nice, nearly burning down the kitchen trying to make breakfast for the whole monastery. Felix wondered if she was looking for Sylvain. Girls usually were. Felix tried to remember if Sylvain had brought up Annette recently, if she was some recent conquest of his. This would be easier, he supposed, if he ever paid attention to anything Sylvain said to him.

“Felix? Hello? Are you listening to me.”

He snapped back into reality. “What?”

“I’m just saying, there’s not a whole lot of people around today, so I think it could be a good chance for both of us. Mostly for me, obviously, but it could be a good chance for you, too! There’s that tournament coming up next month, I think that one’s for swords, I know you always talk about winning those . . .” she hadn’t stopped to take a breath this entire monologue, and her voice was getting more rapid and raising in pitch as she rambled on, clearly unnerved that he wasn’t giving her any response. Felix realized what she was asking not a moment too soon; he worried that if she didn’t breathe soon she might actually pass out.

“You want to spar,” he clarified. “With me. Right now.”

She beamed at him. “Yes! Exactly. It’s a great day for sparring, that’s what I always say on days like today.”

Felix was unmoved by such commentary on optimal timing. He looked her up and down, unimpressed. “You’re a mage, though. I would have thought you’d be more interested in honing your skills in the library and wherever. What, are you planning on lighting that sword on fire or something?”

Her whole face flushed, and Felix bit back a smile at how quickly her cheeks matched her red pigtails. “N-no,” she stammered, raising the sword up to her full height. “I mean I want to spar using swords. I want to hit you. With a sword.” She gave a tentative practice swing, clumsily bringing it back into a fighting stance and giving him a nervous smile.

Felix frowned. She was cute when she smiled and she was cute when she blushed, but he had a date with a practice dummy and this was already starting to feel like a waste of time he couldn’t easily escape. “You want me to train you how to use swords? Go ask the professor if you want help; I’m no tutor.”

“No.” She cut him off, more forcefully than he was anticipating, given her earlier stutters. “I don’t need you to train me. I know what I’m doing. I want to spar with you.”

“To spar. With me.” Felix raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you use swords?”

“Since none-of-your-business, _Felix_,” she snapped. “Are you going to fight me or not?”

Felix sighed. He missed his practice dummy; who never yelled at him. Still, the sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could get back to doing actual work.

“Okay. One duel. Gentleman’s rules: start at 10 paces; first swordsman to land 3 hits is declared the winner.” Felix picked up his sword and walked to the center of the practice ring, casually swinging it in a figure-eight to get a sense of the weight. He turned and faced her. “On my call! Begin in 3 . . . 2 . . .”

She ran at him with ferocity, sword forward and her eyes fixed on his. Felix took a step back, surprised at both her sudden speed and her flagrant disregard for basic etiquette. He seemed to recall that gleam in her eye from a previous battle, right before she’d sent a bandit up in smoke.

Maybe this would be more fun than he thought.

Annette’s first swing was fierce, with a surprising amount of force behind it, but it was rote, the basic form Felix had learned from his father as a child. Felix easily sidestepped it, watching Annette over his shoulder as momentum carried her past him. He easily swung his sword out to the side, lightly tapping her on the shoulder as she worked to slow her run to a stop.

“That’s one hit for me, I believe,” Felix said, taking several steps backward. “Try again.”

Annette’s eyes flashed darkly as she looked at him. “Take this _seriously_, Felix,” she called, raising her voice to bridge the distance he’d created between them.

“I _am_ taking this seriously. I hit you, didn’t I?” Saint Seiros, did the girl _want_ to wake up with bruises tomorrow?

She charged again.

Felix had to admit, she wasn’t lying about knowing her way around the basics of swordsmanship. She’d clearly been practicing with someone – or maybe, like him, she’d spent her spare hours conversing with practice dummies? As she raised her sword to strike him, her form had the perfect optimism of theory, the ideal trajectory for when you’re not fighting a thinking human being.

Unfortunately for Annette, Felix was one such thinking human being.

Annette raised her sword too high, leaving an opening at her side. Felix quickly undercut her, turning the practice sword to strike her side with the flat end of the blade. Annette stumbled back, the wind knocked out of her. Doubling over, she lost her grip on the blade, and it tumbled to the ground.

For a brief moment, Felix saw himself in her panicked eyes, remembering when he had first tried to spar, how he had been certain he was ready, and how the sudden reality of pain had caused him to lose control of his sword. His brother had laughed, and reached down to pick the sword up, and kindly reminded him of the basic principles to hold on to your blade in the midst of battle.

What use was such kindness, in the end.

Felix wasn’t his brother. He charged at Annette, ready to land the final strike and reclaim his training ground.

Annette looked up at him, caught in a panic between picking up her sword and readying herself to fight. Her eyes darted to the sword on the ground. There was no time. He had her exactly where he wanted.

Panicked, frenzied, Annette threw her hands in front of her. Wind magic shot out of her fingertips as she let out a wordless scream. The wild ruffled the edges of her school uniform, and Felix could see her plaited pigtails begin to unravel as the wind whipped through them.

The gust slammed directly into Felix at point blank range.

Catching the bulk of the wind spell in his shoulder, Felix was thrown off balance in the last moments of his attack.

Felix half-lunged, half-fell into Annette, the momentum of his swing wildly uneven from the wind.

The wind went flying up. Felix’s sword went flying to the side. And Annette went flying backwards, caught off guard by the hit and her own instinctual magic. She hit the ground behind her with a loud _thud_. Felix stumbled back, clutching his shoulder and closing his eyes with a grimace. For a moment all he could hear was the wind magic swirling above his head as it dissipated into the air above him. Gradually, the wind disappeared, leaving him only with the sound of his own breathing.

Felix took several deep breaths, trying to steady himself. His shoulder ached from the sudden kick backwards, but he could still move his fingers, so he was optimistic that the wind spell hadn’t actually dislocated anything. He got lucky; he’d seen wind magic jerk limbs in unnatural directions, trained soldiers turned to ragdolls by the air. All this from a moment of panic, and not a prepared or calculated strike. Saints, he was glad he’d never have to face Annette on a battlefield.

Oh dear. Annette.

She had not moved from the spot where she landed. Felix felt a slight twinge of panic for a brief moment. You couldn’t actually kill someone with a wooden practice sword, right? Even if they were small and fragile and running right at you and surprisingly frightening and he could already hear himself explaining to Lady Rhea that he’d acted in self-defense.

Annette groaned, bringing her hands to cover her face. Not dead, then. That was a first step.

Felix walked over to her and cautiously leaned over her. “Hey. Annette. You need to get up.”

“Ughhhhhh,” Annette mumbled into her hands.

“Annette.”

“Ughhhhhh.”

“Look, I don’t have time for –”

“I think all my bones are broken,” she cut him off, her voice still muffled behind her hands. “All my bones are broken and I’ll never move again.”

Felix felt an unexpected wave of relief rush over him. Hyperbole was so much better than specific pain, right now. But still. “Annette, you have to get up.”

“I’m going to die here.”

“You can’t just lay there.”

“I’m going to die here, on the ground. You’re not invited to my funeral.”

“There’s a tournament tomorrow. People will tramp all over you if you don’t move.”

“Ughhhhhh.” Annette lapsed into her favorite refrain. They’d reached a standstill, clearly. Felix had won the battle and his practice hours were still slipping away from him – if anything, his afternoon had only become more ridiculous. But he couldn’t just go back to practicing footwork with an injured girl lying on the ground behind him. Ingrid would yell at him, for one. He might trip on her, for another.

He also maybe felt a tiny bit bad for her. But mostly, Ingrid.

Cajoling was not helping. Felix switched tactics. “Annette,” he said, leaning down over her so she could hear him over her groaning. “If you don’t get up, I will whack you again with this practice sword.”

“Nooooooooooo,” Annette said softly, rolling away from him onto her side and curling into a fetal position. “Go away, Felix.”

“Ah. So you can move. Guess some of those bones aren’t broken after all?"

The mage was unimpressed by his jokes. She turned her head to finally look him in the eye, shooting daggers as she gazed up at him. “You’re evil, Felix,” she murmured.

“Evil, huh?” Felix let out a short laugh. “I’ve been called many names before, but I think that’s a new one.” He bent down to one knee, still towering above her, and held out his hand. “Come on. I promise you sitting is better.”

Annette glared at his outstretched hand for a heartbeat, clearly unconvinced that the ground was not the best option. But she relented, grabbing his hand and pulling herself up with more strength than he would have predicted. Her feet were unsteady as they stood up, and she tumbled forward into him. Felix threw his arm around her to steady her, more instinct than anything else, and winced as she toppled against his shoulder, once more reminding him he hadn’t come out of the battle unscathed, either. For a brief, painful, confused moment, the two students clung to each other for balance. Then, regaining her footing, Annette pushed away, drawing herself up to full height as she tried to remember what standing felt like. Felix could feel the backs of his ears heating up. He inwardly cursed, hoping that his complexion didn’t shift as easily as his companion’s face, now beet red, but worrying he might look basically the same.

“Well,” said Annette, breaking the silence between them. “A good match, Lord Fraldarius. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go . . . cry forever, I guess.”

She turned to make her escape, but her knee buckled under her once more as she took her first step. Felix lunged forward, grasping her by the elbow to steady her.

“Hold on, Annette. Let’s check you haven’t sprained anything. That was quite a fall.”

Annette covered her face with her free hand, a habit Felix was starting to recognize. “Oooh, I’ve messed everything up again. This is the worst day of my life.”

Felix cocked his head to the side, looking down at his strange, despondent classmate who had maybe accidentally tried to kill him minutes before. “If losing a sparring match is the worst day of your life, it sounds like you’ve had a pretty good life.”

“You know what I mean, Felix,” Annette snapped, but Felix felt her lean into his arm for support even as she glared at him. “I can’t use a sword, I can’t win a duel, you’re going to tell everyone I’m that weird girl who uses wind magic instead of actual weapons –”

“Wait, _that’s _the rumor we’re going with?”

“And I can’t even walk away so I can go find a lake and throw myself in it,” she concluded, her litany of troubles reaching a fever pitch.

“Well, who could expect it?” Felix asked, gently pulling her towards the edge of the practice grounds, where the raised floor beneath the surrounding archways made for an easy seating area. “You did break every bone in your body today.”

“Evil, Felix. Absolutely evil.” But Annette allowed herself to led to the steps of the training grounds, and following her proclamation of Felix’s relatively morality, settled against a pillar with a sigh.

Felix snagged his cloak from the ground where he’d left it in a pile next to his school books – the weather was still a bit chilly, but not so much that he needed it while training – and took a seat opposite Annette, leading against a pillar of his own. He rummaged through the pockets of his cloak, seeming to forget that Annette was even there. At any rate, he was in no hurry to make conversation. Annette gently prodded at her ankles and wiggled her fingers, vaguely confirming that all of her limbs still worked more or less as the goddess intended.

She finally broke the silence, “You don’t have to sit here just to try to make me feel better, Felix. You can go back to training or whatever.”

“I can’t, actually,” Felix replied, not looking up. “You hit me pretty direct with that wind spell. I’m not going to risk wrenching my shoulder even more just to get a few more hits in.” He found what he was searching for in his cloak pocket. “Want part of an orange?”

“What?”

“You know, an orange. Like, the fruit?”

Annette blinked at him. “Aren’t you the one who hates sweet things?” Where had she heard that? Felix tried to rack his memory of past conversations he’d had with his classmate. She certainly always seemed to be eating some disgustingly sugary snack, perhaps she’d offered him something before? The thought of it made his teeth ache slightly.

He shrugged. “I mean, I don’t like, I don’t know, cake. But oranges are okay. They’re just energy.”

“That doesn’t sound right. I mean, both in terms of taste buds or science.”

  
  
“They’re easy to carry around, okay? You don’t have to take any if you don’t want it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

They resumed silence. Annette fidgeted, clearly not used to gaps in conversation. But it was Felix who broke the tension.

“So,” he said, beginning to peel the orange in one spiraling peel. “Why the whole sword deal? Tired of being Garegh Mach’s very own sorcery prodigy?”

“I’m not,” Annette said, her ears turning slightly pink. “And anyways, plenty of mages use swords.”

“I don’t know any.”

“Well they do.”

“Seems like a waste of effort."

“Well it’s not.”

The silence crept back up. Felix handed her an orange slice, and for a moment they could pretend the awkwardness between them stemmed from snacks and not, well, everything about them.

“It’s just – ” Annette began, then cut herself off, trying to think of what to say. Felix handed her another orange slice. She tried again. “I just worry that I’m falling behind.”

Of all the possible answers, Felix was not expecting that one. He narrowed his eyes at her, slowly chewing on an orange slice. Shockingly, narrowing his eyes at her did not produce any plausible explanation of what she meant. He’d have to resort to actual conversation. “You’re the top of the class in magic, Annette,” he said slowly. “You’ve passed every test you’ve ever taken. I think you can out-theorize Hanneman. How are you falling –”

“I don’t mean in the classroom!” Annette burst out. “I mean – ” she waved her hands in front of her in wild circles, coming dangerously close to flinging orange slices at Felix’s face – “I mean _everywhere_. In sparring matches, on the battlefield, just _here_ at the academy. No one cares in battle how many theorems you’ve memorized. I can write down every word in lecture and it won’t mean a thing when we have bandits running at us. I’m just that useless mage who can’t take a hit and can’t run away and who everyone would prefer just stayed behind them . . . or stayed home.”

“I don’t get why you’re beating yourself up over this,” Felix said. “I’ve snuck out of every strategy lesson we’ve had this year, but isn’t the general idea that mages take the back line?”

“Mages are supposed to _decimate_ from the back line, Felix.” Annette leaned forward with such intensity that Felix leaned backwards involuntarily – and promptly smacked his head against the pillar. “I’m barely doing _anything_,” she continued, not noticing the _thunk_ and Felix’s grimace. “Sometimes I can barely see who I’m supposed to be hitting. Sometimes my strongest spells barely make a dent. Most of the time I feel like I’m going to pass out in the middle of battle, or my spells just stop working altogether, or I can’t keep up with the main flank at all. If I could do something – anything – else, maybe I wouldn’t feel so out of place on the battlefield. But it’s only a matter of time before the professor figures out I’m not contributing anything and replaces me with some cavalier that can actually stab things, and then I get kicked out of our battle formation, then I get kicked out of our class, then I get kicked out of Garegh Mach and sent home and I worked this hard and he won’t even _know_ that I –” Annette slammed her hand to her mouth, as if she could somehow take the words back. She couldn’t.

“He?” asked Felix, pouncing on the operative word. “Who’s he, exactly?”

“Nobody! Nothing! I – I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean any of that.” Annette stuffed another orange slice in her mouth, as if to say, now you can’t ask any follow up questions.

Felix leaned back and surveyed Annette, a slight smile playing on his lips. So his newfound sparring rival wanted someone’s attention. He mentally flipped through likely candidates. Was she trying to get to catch the boar’s notice? Gain political traction before graduation, when being the vague relative of a noble lord would lose its advantage? Was there some professor she was interested impressing? He hadn’t thought Annette was one to change houses, but he could be wrong. Felix’s smile flattened as he settled on the most obvious answer - was Annette trying to use swordsmanship as some sort of wild romantic ploy? He didn’t necessarily think being good at swordfighting was a particularly _flirtatious_ move (it certainly had never done him any favors), but Sylvain was forever telling him he didn’t understand women. Certainly there were enough idiots around this campus who seemed charmed by Annette’s cheer – Ashe and Caspar and that obnoxiously chipper gatekeeper who called “greetings” every time she walked by.

Felix suddenly felt very annoyed at this mysterious person Annette was so desperate to impress. First of all, they’d set off a chain reaction that had pretty much ruined his entire afternoon. Second of all, they probably weren’t that great, and he didn’t see why she was wasting her time on them. Third of all - -

Third of all.

“Please stop looking at me like I’m crazy,” Annette mumbled miserably. “I said you could go away. You don’t have to sit around and listen to me panic, you know.”

Felix sighed. She was wasting his time in more ways than he could count, sucking him into some interhouse drama he didn’t have any reason to be a part of. Surely one of her friends – any of her friends, she was not short of them – would be better suited for this conversation. And yet.

And yet.

Felix leaned forward. “Look Annette. I want to show you something.” Annette didn’t say anything, but turned her head up to look at him, resting her chin on her hands. Felix stretched out his palm and concentrated, lightly running his fingers along the center of his hand. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a circle of light began to grow in his hand, turning into a small sphere of fire, about the size of an apple.

The fire reflected in Annette’s eyes, which had grown wide at his parlor trick. “Felix? You can do magic?” she asked, perhaps stating the obvious. “You can sword fight _and _you’re good at magic?”

Felix smiled slightly. “Sure. I’m great at it.”

With a flick of his wrist, he flung the fire at Annette.

Annette jerked back, waving her hands wildly, as if she’d just walked into a cobweb or seen a moth fly in her face. She easily dissolved the fireball into thin air, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. Annette remained seated, but pulled herself up to full height, giving her a full inch on Felix’s slouched frame. He had to admit, the effect was startling.

“What are you _doing_?” she snapped at him. “You won your stupid sparring session, are you trying to burn my eyebrows off? Is that what _swordsmen_ do for victory trophies?”

“Woah, Annette, hold on! Let me explain why – ”

“The whole house would call me ‘No-Eyebrows Annie and you would probably think that was soooooo funny, wouldn’t you? You’re just . . . Felix, you’re . . . .you’re. . .”

“Evil?” he supplied.

“Yes! Exactly!” For a moment he couldn’t tell if she was still angry, she was so excited to have found the word.

“Look. I’m not. I mean, maybe I am. But I knew it wasn’t going to hit you.”

“You threw it _right at me_. You’re sitting two feet away from me!”

“Yeah, but like –” Felix wished he had started this illustration with more words. More words next time, he noted to himself. Words make small angry mages less angry. “Listen, Annette. You’re really, really good at shutting down magic. And I’m really, _really_ bad at casting it. You didn’t even have to try to brush that fire away. I _knew_ you wouldn’t even have to try.”

If Annette was satisfied with this answer, she didn’t say so. But, keeping a steely glare fixed on Felix, she settled back against her column, snagging the remaining half of the orange that he had left on the ground between them.

“Hanneman always said I could have a knack for magic if I applied myself. The professor, too, keeps trying to get me to come to those theoretical lectures you love so much.” Felix could feel the words pouring out of his mouth, a desperation to explain himself, to make Annette stop glaring at him. A completely stupid response. He’d never get this afternoon back.

“I can do some stuff on instinct, but I can barely focus in those lectures. It’s meaningless to me. But you . . . the stuff you can do with magic is amazing. You panicked for two seconds when we sparred, and your instinct was to nearly blast my shoulder off. That’s terrifying.” Felix paused, wondering if he’d gone overboard with sincerity. The worst possible thing to go overboard with. “I mean, it’s disqualifying for a duel. But it’s still terrifying.”

Annette chewed the last slice of orange slowly, taking in what he said – or, perhaps, making sense of what it was like to hear Felix say more than 4 words at a time.

“So what you’re saying,” she said slowly, “Is that we’re each good at what we do, and I don’t need to be like you to feel worthwhile. Right?”

  
“What I was _saying_ was that you should stay on the back lines with your magic tricks and let guys who know what they’re doing take care of the heavy lifting,” Felix grinned at her. “But yours is much more inspiring; you should go with that.”

Annette threw the orange peel at him.

“You’re a jerk, Felix.” She allowed herself a small smile. “But thank you. I didn’t expect you to be good at listening.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone. I don’t have time to be giving the whole house pep talks all the time.”

Her smile widened, and Felix felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward in response. Maybe it was good the Training Grounds were abandoned that day. Goddess forbid that a rumor got around that Felix Fraldarius was capable of smiling. Felix looked away, desperate to remind himself that his afternoon had, in fact, been ruined. The silence that stretched between them felt less awkward than it had earlier. It was almost companionable.

Annette broke it.

“Maybe the professor will put us on the same flank next battle,” she mused absently conjuring her own sphere of fire and running it across her fingers. Felix stared at it in fascination. She continued, “If you’re really wanting me to play backup to your front lines. We could be a good team, you know?”

“Bad idea. I work better alone.”

The fire paused between Annette’s ring finger and pinky, an almost imperceptible moment of disappointment. But with a flick of her pinky she sent it flying back to across the back of her hand. Felix wondered if he’d just imagined the pause; if he’d just wanted her to be disappointed.

She was right. He was a jerk.

“It’s nothing personal.”

She flicked the fire across her palm, causing it to disappear with a snap of her fingers. “I know,” she said, a little too brightly. “You’re just like that, aren’t you? Need No-One Fraldarius”

“Don’t nicknames usually rhyme or something?”

  
  
“Feel . .. Forlorn . . . Fighting” Annette frowned. “I’ll work on it. I’m just saying, you’ll miss my spells when you take an axe to the abdomen.”

“Easy fix; I’ll just never get hit.”

Annette laughed, making Felix’s heart skip a beat. It trailed off too soon and she fixed him with a hard, unreadable stare. “I hope you don’t,” she murmured softly.

Felix could feel the flush running up his cheeks. He fumbled for a new subject, any change in tone. “Just follow around Sylvain while he’s showing off,” he stuttered, blurting out the first name that came to mind. “Trust me, he needs you more than me.”

“Does he?” That stare again.

“I mean.” Felix broke eye contact. “Maybe. Probably. Do what you want.”

He stood up too fast, shaking the leg he’d been sitting on, which was dangerously close to numb. Leaning over Annette’s small frame, he offered out a hand. “Come on, let’s get you over to the infirmary. Maybe Professor Manuela can ensure you’ll ever walk again before class this afternoon.”

***

Felix didn’t make a habit of talking to their house professor between classes. Or after classes. Or during classes. She had a knack for finding him, but he suspected that didn’t make him special – she seemed to seek out all her students to talk to. He wasn’t tripping over himself for her attention like the boar or his idiot friends, but Felix figured that since she kept talking to him and kept putting him in the front lines of battle formation, the professor probably mostly liked him. He leaned into this suspicion to give him perhaps undue confidence as he charged into the classroom late that afternoon.

“We need to change formations for the upcoming battle.”

The professor looked up from the battle maps she was studying. Her calm, wide eyes – they never seemed to blink at the rate he expected – met his and conveyed no expression. She slowly reached for the cup of tea she kept at the side of her desk and took a sip. Tea seemed to be her only weakness; she drank it at a rate that couldn’t possibly be healthy, even for flavored herb-water.

“Oh?” she said. Her eyebrows did not raise, she did not smile, she did not frown. Felix was reminded of why he tended to avoid one-on-one conversations with the professor; he could never get a read on her and he could never shake the feeling that she had read him perfectly.

Still. He was already standing there.

“I can’t keep carrying the weight of this army,” Felix pushed on with the spiel he had practiced in his head. “We’re moving from bandits to proper militia. Swords aren’t good for heavy armor.” He swallowed. This next part wasn’t his favorite. “I’m not making a dent on them.”

The professor leaned her head to the side, resting her chin on her palm momentarily. “So what are you wanting me to do?”

Felix had practiced this part. He knew exactly what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it.

“I want. Um.”

“Yes?”

The professor’s eyes drilled two holes straight into the back of his skull.

“I want - - an armorslayer.” Felix blurted out in a panic. Whatever part of his brain had decided words were a good solution earlier that day must have been battle fatigued. There was no way he could explain to this unphased, unmoved mercenary that he suddenly wanted to work with a girl for purely strategic reasons. He had not prepared for the follow up questions that would inevitably arise. “I’d like to use the House coffers to get a better weapon for the upcoming battle.”

The professor took a sip of tea. “Those are expensive, Felix. We don't have unlimited funds.”

Felix scowled. He knew that, and he was feeling more and more like whining noble and less and less like the top swordsman of his class.

“Well, I need some way to take down heavy armored units,” he pushed on, trying to salvage the conversation. “Perhaps there’s something else?”

The professor put down her teacup and continued to look at him. Her eyes betrayed nothing. “Perhaps we could finally put you in charge a battalion?” she suggested. If Felix didn’t know better he could have sworn she sounded amused.

“Terrible idea,” Felix snapped. “That many people would just get in my way. I don’t need an army, I just need one . . . weapon. One different weapon.”

“Perhaps,” said Byleth, pouring herself another cup of tea from the pot at the edge of the desk. “Perhaps we could pair you with another student? Less messy that way, I’m sure. Axes are good against armor, I find.” She took a sip of tea, with a slight slurp that Felix was sure would get her kicked out of court but that he couldn’t deny was charming. She set her teacup down again. “Or mages,” she added off-handedly.

Felix’s heart flipped a moment, but his professor wasn’t the only one who could maintain a flat expression. “Mages, huh?” he said slowly, drawing out the suggestion slightly. “If we’re so broke, I suppose that could probably work.”

“Excellent. I’ll move Mercedes over to the left flank and we can go from –"

“Mercedes?” Felix tried to keep the question neutral, but he could hear his voice slightly crack on the upward inflection.

The professor didn’t appear to notice.

“She’s a very capable healer, Felix, her magic is perfectly suitable if I can trust you to keep her safe.”

“Well, yeah, but,” Felix stumbled over his words for at least the fourth time that day. He was starting to suspect that he was running out of his weekly quota of total words. “I mean, she’s kind of _too_ good, right? Our main healer, and everything? I don’t want to take her away from Dedue or Sylvain or someone who actually needs that.”

He was certain he saw the corners of the professor’s mouth turn up slightly at that, but it was gone in an instant. “How very community-minded of you, Felix.”

“I’m just saying. Is there any other option. Like maybe a . . . smaller . . . change. Of some sort.”

The professor stared at the map in front of her for a moment. Felix couldn’t make sense of the X’s and lines she’d scribbled across it, but it must have conveyed some meaning to her.

“I suppose we could try Annette on the left flank,” she muttered absently to herself.

“Annette? I mean . . . I guess that could work,” Felix jumped in, hoping his voice sounded neutral once more.

“This would be a pretty significant loss to the back line, of course. But if we move this . . . . here,” the professor was lost in thought for a moment, scribbling on her map with a quill that suddenly seemed very squeaky to Felix’s ears. “It could work, I think.” She looked at Felix. “We’ll give it a try.”

“Great. I mean, whatever. I mean, I still want that armorslayer.” The last one seemed the most feasible as Felix said it. “Shouldn’t the church be able to provide basic weaponry? It’s absurd.”

The smile again. But then, it was gone.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Felix. Anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  
  
“No, I’m getting back to the training grounds. There’s still some daylight left.”

The professor nodded. “Take care, Felix.”

“Right. Bye.”

He stalked off, not entire sure, as was usual when talking to the professor, whether he had accomplished what he set out to do – whether she heard him at all. The professor continued to study the maps in front of her, calmly sipping her tea. If Felix had turned back, he might have witnessed the curious event of the professor jerking her head up suddenly, startled, and putting down her quill to converse with an otherwise empty room.

“Well, he certainly seemed interested in armored units, doesn’t he? And here I thought he never paid attention in any of your lectures on strategy.”

Byleth took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Three months at this place and Sothis’s entrances barely made the top 10 of Weird Things, but that didn’t mean she was used to it.

“What do you think made him change his mind?” Sothis needled, pointedly ignoring that Byleth was pointedly ignoring her.

“I think you have a theory,” Byleth replied dryly, taking up her quill once more. “And I think you’re going to tell me.”

“Surely the son of a nobleman could afford to buy his own special sword, if that’s what he wanted.”

“Mm,” murmured Byleth, noncommittally.

“Surely there can’t be _that_ much difference between your mages, strategically. I daresay his motivations were much more, shall we say, social.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t you have anything else to say for yourself?” Sothis spat, the annoyance evident in her voice. “You’re no fun at all.”

“I think,” Byleth said, marking several X’s on her map, “that I miss being a mercenary.”

“Well, at least _someone_ in this school is having a good time. You, meanwhile, have a crown prince stumbling over his words every time he talks to you, and you still barely smile.”

“Mm.”

The pause that filled the room was so long that Byleth thought perhaps she had frustrated Sothis out of the dimension once more. It wouldn’t be the first time. Then she heard Sothis’s voice over her shoulder once more, the edge of malice softened by genuine curiosity.

“So. Are you going to have them work together?”

  
  
“Of course I am,” Byleth said, stoically marking a new handful of X’s on her battle plans. “I’m not completely heartless.”

**Author's Note:**

> Can you imagine writing about characters that weren’t complete and total disasters? Couldn’t be me!
> 
> I like these two so much. Felix always seems to have the upper hand in conversation until their final support, but I still think that Annette always throws him off guard, even from the beginning. It’s v. cute.
> 
> I figure this story takes place early on in the game, when your mages have 4 movement and 4 spell slots and just kind of run around the battlefield in a panic. Fear not, Annette. You will be absolutely devastating by the time we get to the time skip.
> 
> I have a few more ideas kicking around for one-shots of these two, but feel free to drop me a line if you want to hear anything in particular. They’ve both got a lot going on that's fun to explore, I think. Maybe someday I’ll even write something with a plot.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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